arrangement free. free. free. free broadcast video for your media project for free media. president putin signs the bill which includes. russian children pledging to improve the lives of all friends within the country also. this is the most amazing gun buying spree i've ever seen two weeks after the tragic school shooting in connecticut gun stores are flooded by customers barack obama's threats of firearms prove to be that. money does not buy happiness in the u.k. there's over a fifth of the country's richest people dream of living. and hopes for dialogue in

syria as moscow urges more flexibility from the rebels and their international backers are waiting for concrete diplomatic steps from damascus. cruise recalled how they covered the conflict in two thousand and twelve. around the world around the clock this is live from moscow with me rory sushi thank you for joining us today. first to our breaking news for you this hour president putin has signed the bill which includes a ban on u.s. citizens adopting russian children is also promising to back a motion to increase domestic adoption and improve conditions for the orphans inside the country the restrictions came about after washington's travel and financial sanctions. against russian officials that alleges are involved in human

rights violations moscow assists the counter legislation is not aimed at all friends or potential adoptive parents that america's lunch treatment of child abuse and lack of access to the children and we spoke to an american adoption expert who says that tracking the treatment of russian children in the u.s. is all but impossible. a lot of the cases have gotten very very light sentences for the caretakers whether forster or adoptive of russian children here in the united states but we certainly have no idea how many children are enduring abuse is surviving abuse is of all kinds the children that died at the hands of their adoptive parents were tortured in some horrendous ways they were sexually abused they were burnt they were starved they were killed he ever any conceivable kind of torture one human being include inflict on another was done to these children so

these were the parents that were caught and prosecuted nineteen how many more are there is there is absolutely no way of knowing the united states has no system of follow up on adoptions once an adoption is finalized the child is considered as if born to that family. that was a mirror ribbon talking to want to bring you more on that story in the next hour if you can to stay with us for that. now gun sales are surging it's a record levels all across the u.s. president obama's pledge to tackle firearms ownership in the wake of the sandy hook school massacre seen the shooting spree develop into a shopping spree for guns he's gone a teacher can spoke to some of the store owners who ultimately cashing it. about two weeks ago actually on this particular wall here. they are as four rows down

four rows across. with everything going on in politics right now with the possible ban and everything everyone is flooding in. purchasing right away gun stores all across the u.s. are reporting record sales just two weeks after the tragic shooting at the elementary school in newtown americans are scrambling to buy the same type of weapon that adam lanza used in the connecticut shooting plus high capacity magazines and a lot of them panic buying trigger it out of fear that the white house is out to ban the weapons but this time the words need to lead to action we we actually i would say you could double or triple and say oh it's the best day we've ever had as a business no a r fifteen for this customer all sold out at the store while prices on line have gone through the roof have been going for

a thousand and fifteen hundred eight hundred dollars to twenty five hundred three thousand dollars even in some cases it's just the most amazing gun buying spree i've ever seen so many gun retailers now quite cynically refer to thieve ministrations ben talk as the obama gun stimulus that's how good it's been from their business so how do you go from a president with a tough gun control agenda to someone gun dealers call the greatest gun salesman in america manufacturers of semi-automatic rifles were poured that their market has grown thirty percent of the last four years states like north carolina iowa and you have seen a one hundred percent increase in gun sales over the same period in the wake of the tragedy in newtown one of the country's biggest ammunition suppliers said they sold more than three years worth of magazines in just three days. although president obama himself has so far failed to act on his pledge to ban assault weapons his words have certainly provoked action just not the type you may have wanted or

someone they say was against were. doing a great job for us. maybe they should be a third term in order to sell even more weapons many dealers hype up the gun apocalypse scenario so the band then bit more government. regulators start not only to start with. but many of them don't actually see any drastic changes happening any time soon. we're going to. high cap magazines. it's kind of almost impossible because. it's already circulating now. how are you going to get everybody to bring everything back after all any significant gun control measures and up in the past ultimately clashed with the second amendment of the constitution and were subsequently scrapped. i'm going to check out.

how to prevent more school shootings while gun enthusiasts in utah say shoot first advocated concealed firearms classes for teachers and more on that story on our website dot com. now having a healthy bank balance in britain is no key to happiness well then a fifth of the country's millionaires are considering emigrating in the next two years and that's according to the bank lloyds t.s.b. international law more on this now from marty's party boy because she reports from london. blame the dismal weather that's reportedly the overwhelming reason for why one in five british million as a considering upping sticks and leaving the country now those reasons are followed closely by the high rate of crime in the u.k. and antisocial behavior and then another reason why they might want to leave is the high cost of living here in the u.k. and only in fourth place for my why they might might want to leave is the high rate

of personal taxation now where are they going well top of the list of destinations is france it's nearby and it's warmer weather and same goes for spain which is the other place where they're all thinking of flocking to followed by the usa now we didn't manage to track down any millionaires but we hit the streets of london to talk to the ordinary londoners to ask whether they were considering opting sticks and leaving as well and it looks like most of them agree with the millionaires so let's take a listen to what they told us you consider leaving the u.k. . one reason to climb up first the second the dark. just. would you consider leaving the u.k. and leaving somewhere else i'm going to do really what is the reason my wife. my children but also the expense here looks like the middle class professionals are

the ones who are actually packing their bags and leaving a recent report by the home office said that more and more middle class we professionals are actually packing their bags and opting to continue that careers elsewhere and for them the main reason is the high rate of personal taxation so if the millionaires are the ones that don't like the rain then is the middle class professionals the senior managers the academics the scientists that are actually continuing their careers abroad and a lot of business leaders are saying that if the high rate of personal taxation isn't cut it's going to lead to a brain drain for the u.k. in the future so something that's very worrying for politicians to consider here. reporting that now america is braced to plunge off the fiscal cliff away as democrats and republicans haggle over taxes for the rich we hear how the more wiring aspects of a deal have long been agreed upon. just one in ten minutes past the hour

moscow time russia has criticized the deep reluctance of syria's key opposition group to make any concessions in the conflict that's already as we all know been dragging on for two years but foreign minister sergei lavrov has expressed some hope that a diplomatic solution does remain an option on the table. it was assured we are disappointed with the opposition forces statements that deposing their regime and dismantling all of its institutions is their main goal and that they will not enter into talks with the international community should not be instigating the continuation of this bloodshed so neither should they be sitting any preconditions . they should instead encourage all the conflicting science to look for ways to launch political dialogue. because. russia is waiting for concrete diplomatic actions from damascus which. gets readiness for dialogue the u.n. arab league special envoy to syria lakhdar brahimi has already called for the

formation of a transitional council international peace effort comes of it fresh blood shed which has become common in the state reporters got as close as they could to bring you the real stories of the violence that's tearing the country apart and that's what we're focusing on today in our series on the events that shaped twenty twenty . pound after a massive regional arab spring and in the wake of that the next of a pro-democracy movement and a revolution or civil war was not what was happening in. the media. people who think what about. the politics and diplomacy that.

i remember i was a training session of the syrian football team and the coach was very angry with his players when he was shouting he was swearing. and then i moved my head like just like this and i saw two helicopters flying at very low altitude and firing. and there was a group for rich syrians. living life as usual and just. as me and my colleagues were living. there was an enormous blast a few blocks away most likely. people have been killed and what struck you was the coexistence of those two. realities the. most interesting interaction for me with us happened before and after the interview obviously in that case. i asked him if he's afraid.

said no. i'm not afraid that's a moment when the you believe the person or not and the only reason you know if he's right or wrong. i think series becoming. iraq it's a country that is totally. quiet and i don't surprise anybody and like in the case of iraq all this harm was done to syria with the substantial help of the outsiders on the guise of democratic. and i do stay with us if you can hear and see for more twenty two calls for now though the plot of a james bond movie seems to be playing out inside a russian court hundreds of millions in stolen assets glamorous girls and a paper trail of corruption that led investigators to a former defense minister more details on that in just

a few minutes. if you're from my generation or younger and you were born into the one percent that i have a lot of college debt i sure do you know the deal used to be that you paid a significant amount for education but in turn that gave you a much higher salary later but now the system works in reverse many young americans study very hard to not make any money at all around nine percent. americans with student loans have defaulted and at least nine but maybe up to eighteen percent are ninety days late with their payments given the situation the people at u.c. berkeley were nice enough to give away a million dollars in scholarships for everyone everyone that's an illegal immigrant yeah that's right if you're born in america then pay till you die but jump the

border and enjoy the red carpet education treatment the people who will be getting the scholarships are mostly the children of illegal immigrants who spent many of their formative years in america and yeah i could see the logic that it could be hard for them to get an education when they are when they aren't citizens but they came into the country illegally it isn't taxpayers jobs to help them but wait berkeley is a private institution so i guess they can give out the money to whoever they want whenever they want however they want but berkeley management if you're watching this i would really appreciate if you show some financial mercy to american citizens it isn't like they don't need the help but that's just my opinion. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything. i'm tired

of the big picture. choose your language. because we can we know if you're going to. choose to use the consensus to. choose. the great. choose the stories go to. choose the access to. british. markets. can't. find out what's really happening to the global economy

with mike's no holds barred look at the global financial headlines kaiser report on . science technology innovation. developments from around russia we. covered. for joining us here in. the u.s. teetering on the fiscal cliff the president the senate and the house of representatives still no closer to a deal it's just days to go until taxes for americans across the board jump massively at the same time a spending plummets activist and journalist says it's not the deadlock that bothers him but what has already been agreed upon. the real problem in my eyes is not the

fact that they can't reach an agreement but rather that they have reached an agreement on many fundamental things the grievance they have reached is that neither of them are going to advocate to put more money in the hands of working people they have no problem whatsoever removing a trillion dollars or three trillion dollars from the economy and delivering it to the bankers they did that inside of twenty days back in two thousand and eight and again in two thousand and nine with very little discussion. everyone agrees on both sides of the aisle that sum's sort of reduction in benefits from social security and medicare is inevitable quote unquote well you know the rest of us don't believe that it's inevitable or even that it's necessary and certainly not that it's that it's not desirable yet the greenman between the democrats and republicans on these fundamental issues is in my mind more important than their disagreement the

posturing that they're doing for the media basically trying to blame each other for the you know going over the so-called cliff that one longs guns on stolen billions suddenly the ingredients for the most eye opening corruption scandal to have a most in russia and yes but that's following the case of being left disappointed today after former defense minister and i told you so it took off a witness questioning i'm going to go to school reports. this is sort of the un to climax of one of the biggest the loudest of political and financial scandals in russia's recent history and i showed up to the investigative committee which is right behind me but refused to testify saying that his lawyer is ill and he's not going to play word without him now we are talking about a major fraudulent scheme which involves a company under the umbrella of the ministry of defense selling some of the most lucrative defense assets to other companies also affiliated with the ministry of

defense. in the using money which were embezzled from the government we're talking about the amount of nearly two hundred million dollars now we also know that some of the closest associates and friends of the former defense minister have been arrested in connection with the case including woman who is purportedly his girlfriend but there are hints coming from some of the officials which do indicate that he may very well soon be a suspect in this fraudulent scheme. that is a ridiculous now the international monetary fund raising the alarm over germany's reported austerity plans and the measures due to be rolled out after next year's elections apparently would raise retirement ages hike taxes cut welfare and bring europe to a grinding halt that's according to the i.m.f. on top of that as artie's put it all of a discovered it's unlikely to make dejected voters any happier. the top of the european treat don't think germans feel that they have nothing to grumble about.

those in the park the measuring public mood by telephone and face to face through thousands of interviews we've got a pretty good idea of what the people are thinking stats boffins have been gauging the country's mood to come up with the biggest moans of the year from rich german. at number five it's national debt it's better to give than to receive at this time of year but german's festive spirit ran out long ago over chancellor merkel being a little too generous and bailing out countries like greece especially when it's their money and for is climate change the mayan world ending prophecy may have turned out to be hocus pocus but germans remain seriously concerned about keeping mother earth ticking over for as long as possible number three is a very twenty first century problem getting ripped off online as we bank in shop on the web more than ever before the fear for germans is that someone else's netting

their details on their cash. poverty came in second towards the end of the year it was revealed that around a quarter of europeans are at risk of living below the breadline germans watch with despair at what's happening to the greeks and spanish images they struggle to shake from their minds but the biggest worry for germans in twenty twelve was rising prices costs a rocketing everywhere from food to fuel and next year looks set to get even more pricey germany is a world leader in using renewable energy and over the coming year it's the consumer who will be paying to keep it that way with a shocking fifty percent increase in the subsidy paid towards renewable energy sources so that's what troubled germans this year but what are their fears for the future but i'm concerned maybe to find a good job because i want to do something different trying to thirteen minutes on

sure what is happening in an economical crisis perhaps the euro is having another crisis but i actually love berlin that's why i want to stay here but if i can't find a job here so will have to try to get somewhere else let people are concerned about job security that they just that yeah the contracts are not secure in our that firms companies no longer have enough money and that people are just get fired. as with most situations in life when you ask people what their concerns are or what they want to see changed you do have to be prepared that their own says might not be exactly what you want to hear really one of the you off the top promise was to legalize soft drugs i don't think the thing soft focus is when you get cancer you. should have split titian's in two thousand and thirteen so what will

germans be concerned about at the end of twenty thirteen even though they've less to worry about than most europeans it's unlikely that where he's overspending is home all other countries will disappear within twelve months peter all of a r.t. berlin and a just after a short break here at r.t. it's going to be lauren lyster going off the wall street it's accepted practice of for a while and corruption says. it's perched atop a giant truck and the view from the tobolsk kremlin stretches as far as the eye can see. for a city that chilled all of siberia for centuries. it lost its economic importance even before it was bypassed by the chance i bear in railway but the ball's cremains

a spiritual center. was just doing. things like these are a yearly occurrence thousands of orthodox worshippers and blessid water to commemorate the baptism of jesus. i. was there when you pull up on board the it doesn't matter if it's minus thirty it's a siberian tradition i do it myself every year for everyone to overcome their worst fears it is desirable to take the plunge. but that's a picture postcard church is the story of a city built by opportunist explorers political exiles and crafty fur traders in the fifteen eighties the russians had only just conquered siberia taking it from the muslim. surrounded by enemies the balls to be their stronghold constructed on

top of the city but soon enough it became an economic hub siberian oil of its time bringing in a third of all russia's state revenue but the location head of the says for the russians are. to moscow as one of the most popular places to send political dissent is not any people were exiled that once a giant bow that was used to incite riots was supposed to set a three hundred ten. the russian the crowd a revolt against azhar and eight hundred twenty five known as the decembrists worse than hare and drove. there they created a replica high society adopting the latest fashions as soon as they came out or at least once they made it from paris to siberia. but the city also served up some bitter irony for the russian royal family after the bolshevik revolution. this is the office was solemn nickolas the second spend most of the last year of his life

his whole family had been exiled here they were fairly comfortable existence this was a big house but they weren't allowed to see visitors or go outside themselves leading this ordinary normal countryside lifestyle they even had thoughts of escape but with a bizarre and his family. never again its political significance but the streets will always go with a glorious past and the like to provide the livelihood for some habitants in the future. good afternoon welcome to capital account i'm lauren mr here in washington d.c.

these are your headlines for thursday december twentieth two thousand and twelve in the u.s. as the fiscal cliff approaches reuters reports republicans are aiming to vote today in the house on a plan which obama promptly says he would veto meanwhile phish has warned the u.s. could lose its aaa credit rating if washington doesn't get a deal to treat what we call economy now this may all feel like deja vu and maybe it will all turn out fine maybe it won't though where you want to place your bets we'll talk to the daily reckonings eric cry and joe bowman about their choices plus a german study finds paying taxes has a positive impact on a person's subjective well being no word on what the findings would bring in the west but if you are counting on taxation to make you feel like your quality of life is on the up and up state side one talk about some other economic options and the opec of maple syrup has been robbed millions of dollars worth of the hot commodity has been stolen from canada's maple syrup card. hell yes cartel i said mabel syrup

cartel and those are not my words that's according to the new york times we'll talk about it in loose change let's get to today's capital account. in the u.s. as we watch this fiscal cliff charade it honestly sounds just so much like what we were hearing during the debt ceiling debate of two thousand and eleven when lawmakers were bickering and another ratings agency was threatening to drop the u.s. is aaa credit rating and then it of course did now that was met with much fanfare in the beginning but then not many direct consequences the dollar has strengthened against other currencies the u.s. has borrowed at record low rates since and maybe this whole fiscal cliff saga will .